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AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 



THE HISTOEIOAL WORK OF PEOFESSOE 
HEEBEET TTJTTLE 



BY 



HEEBEET B. ADAMS. 



(From the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1894, pages 29-37.) 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1896. 



FEB 3 1903 
D,ofD, 



• . • •• i • • 

• •• ••• ••• 

• ••• •»•«« 






IV.-THE HISTORICAL WORK OF PROF. HERBERT TUTTLE. 



By Prof. Herbert B. Adams, of Johns Hopkins University. 



Since the Chicago meeting of the American Historical Asso- 
ciation one of its most active workers in the field of European 
history has passed away. Prof. Herbert Tuttle, of Cornell 
University, was perhaps our only original American scholar 
in the domain of Prussian history. Several of our academic 
members have lectured upon Prussia, but Tuttle was an author- 
ity upon the subject. Prof. Eudolf Gneist, of the University 
of Berlin, said to Chapman Coleman, United States secretary 
of legation in Berlin, that Tuttle' s History of Frederick the 
Great was the best written. The Pall Mall Gazette, July 11, 
1888, in reviewing the same work, said: "This is a sound and 
solid piece of learning, and shows what good service America 
is doing in the field of history." 1 

It is the duty of the American Historical Association to put 
on record the few biographical facts which Professor Tuttle's 
friends have been able to discover. Perhaps a more complete 
account may some day be written. 

Herbert Tuttle was born November 29, 1846, in Bennington, 
Yt. Upon that historic ground, near one of the battlefields 
of the American Bevolution, was trained the coming historian 
of the wars of Frederick. Herbert Tuttle went to college at 
Burlington, where he came under the personal influence of 

1 One of Professor Tuttle's Cornell students, Mr. U. G. Weatherby, wrote 
to lnin from Heidelberg, October, 1893: iC You will probably be interested 
to know tbat I have called on Erdmannsdorffer, who, on learning that I was 
from Cornell, mentioned you and spoke most flatteringly of your History 
of Prussia, which he said had a peculiar interest, to him as showing an 
American's views of Frederick the Great. Erdmannsdorffer is a pleasant 
man in every way and an attractive lecturer." The Heidelberg professor 
is himself an authority upon Prussian history. He has edited the Urkun- 
den und Aktenstiicke zur Geschichte des Kurfiirsten Friedrich Wilhelm 
von Brandenburg, a long series of volumes devoted to the documentary 
history of the period of the Great Elector. 

29 



30 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

James B. Angell, then president of the University of Vermont 
and now ex-president of the American Historical Association. 
Dr. Angell was one of the determining forces in Mr. Tut- 
tle's later academic career, which began in the University of 
Michigan. 

Among the permanent traits of Mr. Tuttle's character, 
developed by his Vermont training, were (1) an extraordinary 
soundness of judgment, (2) a remarkably quick wit, and (3) a 
passionate love of nature. The beautiful environment of Bur- 
lington, on Lake Champlain, the strength of the hills, the 
keenness of the air, the good sense, the humor, and shrewd- 
ness of the people among whom he lived and worked, had 
their quickening influence upon the young Vermonter. Presi- 
dent Buckhain, of the University of Vermont, recently said 
of Mr. Tuttle: " I have the most vivid recollection of his bril- 
liancy as a writer on literary and historic themes, a branch 
of the college work then in my charge. We shall cherish his 
memory as one of the treasures of the institution. " 

Herbert Tuttle, like all true Americans, was deeply inter- 
ested in politics. The subject of his commencement oration 
was " Political faith," and to his college ideal he always re- 
mained true. To the end of his active life he was laboring 
with voice and pen for the cause of civic reform. Indeed, his 
whole career, as journalist, historian, and teacher, is the direct 
result of his interest in politics, which is the real life of society. 
From Burlington, where he was graduated in 1869, he went 
to Boston, where for nearly two years he was on the editorial 
staff of the Boston Advertiser. His acuteness as an observer 
and as a critic was here further developed. He widened his 
personal acquaintance and his social experience. He became 
interested in art, literature, and the drama. His desire was 
quickened for travel and study in the Old World. 

We next find young Tuttle in Paris for nearly two years, 
acting as correspondent for the Boston Advertiser and the 
New York Tribune. He attended lectures at the Sorbonne and 
College de France. He made the acquaintance of Guizot, 
who recommended for him a course of historical reading. He 
contributed an article to Harper's Monthly on the Mont de 
Piete. He wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly in 1872 
on French Democracy. The same year he published an edito- 
rial on the Alabama claims in the Journal des Debats. About 
the same time he wrote letters to the New York Tribune on 



HISTORICAL WORK OF PROF. TUTTLE ADAMS. 31 

the Geneva Arbitration. Turtle's work for the Tribune was 
so good that Mr. George W. Sm alley, its well-known London 
representative, recommended him for the important position 
of Berlin correspondent for the London Daily News. This 
salaried office Tuttle held for six years (1873-1879), during 
which time he enjoyed the best of opportunities for travel 
and observation in Germany, Austria, Russia, and the Dan- 
ube provinces. Aside from his letters to the London Daily 
News, some of the fruits of these extended studies of Euro- 
pean politics appear in a succession of articles in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine for 1872-73: "The parliamentary leaders of 
Germany;" "Philosophy of the Falk laws;" "The author 
of the Falk laws;" " Club life in Berlin." 

In 1876 was published by the Putnams in New York, Tur- 
tle's book on German political leaders. From 1876 to 1879, 
when he returned to America, Tuttle was a busy foreign corre- 
spondent for the great English daily and a contributor to 
American magazines. Among his noteworthy articles are : 
(1) Prussian Wends and their home (Harper's Monthly, March, 
1876); (2) Naturalization treaty with Germany (The Nation, 
1877) ; (3) Parties and politics in Germany (Fortnightly Re- 
view, 1877): (1) Die Amerikanischen Wahlen (Die Gegenwart, 
(October, 1878); (5) Reaction in Germany (The Nation, June, 
1879); (6) German Politics (Fortnightly Review, August, 1879). 

While living in Berlin Mr. Tuttle met Miss Mary McArthur 
Thompson, of Hillsboro, Highland County, Ohio, a young lady 
of artistic tastes, whom he married July 6, 1875. In Berlin 
he also met President Andrew I). White, of Cornell Univer- 
sity, who was then our American minister in Germany. Like 
Dr. Angell, President White was a determining influence in 
Turtle's career. Mr. White encouraged him in his ambitious 
project of writing a history of Prussia, for which he began to 
collect materials as early as 1875. More than one promising 
young American was discovered in Berlin by Mr. White. At 
least three were invited by him to Cornell University to lecture 
on their chosen specialties : Herbert Tuttle on history and inter- 
national law, Henry C. Adams on economics, and Richard T. 
Ely on the same subject. All three subsequently became uni- 
versity professors. 

Before going to Cornell University, however, Mr. Tuttle 
accepted an invitation in September, 1880, to lecture on inter- 
national law at the University of Michigan during the absence 



32 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

of President Angell as American minister in China. Thus the 
personal influence first felt at the University of Vermont was 
renewed after an interval of ten years, and the department of 
President Angell was temporarily handed over to his former 
pupil. In the autumn of 1881 Mr. Tuttle was appointed lecturer 
on international law at Cornell University for one semester, 
but still continued to lecture at Ann Arbor. In 1883 he was 
made associate professor of history and theory of politics and 
international law at Ithaca. In 1887, by vote of the Cornell 
trustees, he was elected to a full professorship. I have a letter 
from him, written March 10, the very day of his appointment, 
saying: 

You will congratulate me on my election, which took place to-day, as 
full professor. The telegraphic announcements which you may see in the 
newspapers putting me into the law faculty may be misleading unless I 
explain that my title is, I believe, professor of the history of political and 
municipal institutions in the regular faculty. But on account of my Eng- 
lish Constitutional History and International Law, I am also put in the 
law faculty, as is Tyler for American Constitutional History and Law. 

Professor Tuttle was one of the original members of the 
American Historical Association, organized ten years ago at 
Saratoga, September 9-10, 1884. His name appears in our 
first annual report (Papers of the American Historical Asso- 
ciation, Vol. I, p. 43). At the second annual meeting of the 
association, held in Saratoga, September 10, 1885, Professor 
Tuttle made some interesting remarks upon " Xew materials 
for the history of Frederick the Great of Prussia." By new 
materials he meant such as had come to light since Carlyle 
wrote his Life of Frederick. After mentioning the more recent 
German works, like Arneth's Geschichte Maria Theresa, Droy- 
sen's Geschichte der preussischen Politik, the new edition of 
Ranke, the Due de Broglie's Studies in the French Archives, 
and the Publications of the Eussian Historical Society, Mr. 
Tuttle called attention to the admirable historical work lately 
done in Prussia in publishing the political correspondence of 
Frederick the Great, including every important letter written 
by Frederick himself, or by secretaries under his direction, 
bearing upon diplomacy or public policy. 

At the same meeting of the association, Hon. Eugene 
Schuyler gave some account of the historical work that had 
been done in Russia. The author of The Life of Peter the 



HISTORICAL WORK OF PROF. TUTTLE ADAMS. 33 

Great, which first appeared in the Century Magazine, and 
the author of The History of Prussia under Frederick the 
Great were almost inseparable companions at that last Sar- 
atoga meeting of this association in 1885. I joined them on 
one or two pleasant excursions and well remember their good 
fellowship and conversation. Both men were somewhat crit- 
ical with regard to our early policy, but Mr. Tuttle in subse- 
quent letters to me indicated a growing sympathy with the 
object of the association, which, by the constitution, is declared 
to be "the promotion of historical studies." In the letter 
above referred to, he said : 

You will receive a letter from Mr. Winsor about a paper which I sug- 
gested for the Historical Association. It is by our fellow iu history, Mr. 
Mills, and is an account of the diplomatic negotiations, etc., which pre- 
ceded the seven years' war, from sources which have never been used in 
English. As you know, I am as a rule opposed to presenting in the asso- 
ciation papers which have been prepared in seminaries, but as there will 
probably be little on European history I waive the principle. 

After the appearance of the report of our fourth annual 
meeting, held in Boston and Cambridge May 21-24, 1887, Mr. 
Tuttle wrote, October 18, 1888, expressing his gratification 
with the published proceedings, and adding, "I think the 
change from Columbus to Washington a wise one." There had 
been some talk of holding the annual meetiug of the associa- 
tion in the State capital of Ohio, in order to aid in the com- 
memoration of the settlement of the Old Northwest Territory. 

From the time of his return to America until the year 1888 
Mr. Tuttle continued to make valuable contributions to period- 
ical literature. The following list illustrates his general lit- 
erary activity from year to year : 

1880. Germany and Russia; Russia as viewed by Liberals and Tories; 

Lessons from the Prussian Civil Service. (The Nation, April.) 

1881. The German Chancellor and the Diet. (The Nation, April.) 

1881. The German Empire. (Harper's Monthly, September.) 

1882. Some Traits of Bismarck. (Atlantic Monthly, February.) 

1882. The Eastern Question. (Atlantic Monthly, June.) 

1883. A Vacation in Vermont. (Harper's Monthly, November. ) 

1884. Peter the Great. (Atlantic Monthly, July.) 

1884. The Despotism of Party. (Atlantic Monthly, September.) 

1885. John DeWitt. (The Dial, December.) 

1886. Pope and Chancellor. (The Cosmopolitan, August.) 

1886. Lowe's Life of Bismarck. (The Dial.) 

1887. The Huguenots and Henry of Navarre. (The Dial, January.) 

H. Mis. 91 3 



34 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Frederick the Great and Madame de Pompadour. (Atlantic Monthly, 

January.; 
L888, The Outlook in Germany. (The Independent, June.) 

History of Prussia under Frederick the Great, 2 vols. (Houghton, 
Mi 111 m & Co.) 
L888. The Value of English Guarantees. (New York Times. February.) 
L888. The Emperor William. (Atlantic Monthly, May.) 

The great work of Professor Tuttle was his History of Prus- 
sia, upon which he worked for more then ten years after his 
return from Germany. From November, 1879, until October, 
L883, Mr. Tuttle was engaged upon the preparation of his first 
volume, which covers the history of Prussia from 1134 to 1740, 
or to the accession of Frederick the Great. He said in his 
preface that he purposed to describe the political development 
of Prussia and had made somewhat minute researches into 
the early institutions of Brandenburg. Throughout the work 
he paid special attention to the development of the constitu- 
tion. 

Mr. Tuttle had brought home from Germany many good 
materials which he had himself collected, and he was substan- 
tially aided by the cooperation of President White. Eegard- 
ing this practical service, Professor Tuttle, in the preface to 
his Frederick the Great, said: 

When, on the completion of my first volume of Prussian history, he 
[President White] learned that the continuation of the work might be 
made difficult, or at least delayed, by the scarcity of material in America 
he generously offered me what was in effect an unlimited authority to 
order in his name auy books that might be necessary ; so that I was enabled 
to obtain a large and indispensable addition to the historical work already 
present in Mr. White's own noble library and in that of the university. 

Five years after the appearance of the first volume was pub- 
lished Tuttle's History of Prussia under Frederick the Great. 
One volume covered the subject from 1740 to 1745; another 
from 1745 to 1750. At the time of his death Mr. Tuttle left 
ready for the printer some fifteen chapters of the third volume 
of his " Frederick," or the fourth volume of the History of Prus- 
sia. He told his wife that the wars of Frederick would kill 
him. We know how Oarlyle toiled and worried over that ter- 
ribly complex period of European history represented by the 
wars and diplomacy of the Great Frederick. In his preface to 
his "Frederick" Mr. Tuttle said that he discovered during a 
residence of several years in Berlin how inadequate was Oar- 
lyle's account, and probably also his knowledge, of the work- 
ing system of the Prussian Government in the eighteenth 



HISTORICAL WORK OF PROF. TUTTLE ADAMS. 35 

century. Again the American writer declared the distinctive 
purpose of his own work to be a presentation of "the life of 
Prussia as a State, the development of polity, the growth 
of institutions, the progress of society." He said he had been 
aided in his work "by a vast literature which has grown up 
since the time of Carlyle." The description of that literature 
in Tuttle's preface is substantially his account of that subject 
as presented to the American Historical Association at Sara- 
toga in 1885. 

In his Life of Frederick, Mr. Tuttle took occasion to clear 
away many historical delusions which Carlyle and Macaulay 
had perpetuated. Eegarding this wholesome service the Pall 
Mall Gazette, July 11, 1888, said: 

It is quite refreshing to read a simple account of Maria Theresa's appeal 
to the Hungarians at Presburg without the "moriamur pro rege nostro" 
or the "picturesque myths" that have gathered around it. Most people, 
too, will surely he glad to learn from Mr. Tuttle that there is no founda- 
tion for the story of that model wife and mother addressing Mme. de 
Pompadour as "dear cousin" in a note, as Macaulay puts it, "full of 
expressions of esteem and friendship." "The text of such a pretended 
letter had never been given," and Maria Theresa herself denied that she 
had ever written to the Pornpadour. 

In the year 1891, at his own request, Professor Tuttle was 
transferred to the chair of modern European history, which he 
held as long as he lived. Although in failing health, he con- 
tinued to work upon his History of Prussia until 1892 and to 
lecture to his students until the year before he died. A few 
days before his death he looked over the manuscript chapters 
which he had prepared for his fourth volume of the History of 
Prussia and said he would now devote himself to their comple- 
tion; but the next morning he arose and exclaimed, "The end! 
the end! the end!" He died June 21, 1894, from a general 
breakdown. His death occurred on commencement day, when 
he had hoped to thank the board of trustees for their gener- 
ous continuation of his full salary throughout the year of his 
disability. One of his colleagues, writing to the New York 
Tribune, July 18, 1891, said: 

It was a significant fact that he died on this day, and that his many and 
devoted friends, his colleagues, and grateful students should still he pres- 
ent to attend the burial service and carry his body on the following day to 
its resting place. A proper site for his grave is to be chosen from amid 
the glorious scenery of this time-honored cemetery, where the chimes of 



36 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 

Cornell University will still ring over his head, and the student body in 
passing will recall the man of brilliant attainment and solid worth, the 
scholar of untiring industry, and the truthful, able historian, and will 
more and more estimate the loss to American scholarship and university 
life. 

One of Professor Tuttle's favorite students, Herbert E. Mills, 
now professor of history at Yassar College, wrote as follows to 
the New York Evening Post, July 27, 1894: 

In the death of Professor Tuttle the writing and teaching of history has 
suffered a great loss. The value of his work both as an investigator and 
as a university teacher is not fully appreciated except by those who have 
read his books carefully or have had the great pleasure and benefit of 
study under his direction. Among the many able historical lecturers that 
have been connected with Cornell University no one stood higher in the 
estimation of the students than Professor Tuttle. 

Another of Professor Tuttle's best students, Mr. Ernest W. 
Huffcut, of Cornell University, says of aim : 

He went by instinct to the heart of every question and had a power and 
grace of expression which enabled him to lay bare the precise point in 
issue. As an academic lecturer he had few equals here or elsewhere in 
those qualities of clearness, accuracy, and force which go farthest toward 
equipping the successful teacher. He was respected and admired by his 
colleagues for his brilliant qualities and his absolute integrity, and by 
those admitted to the closer relationship of personal friends he was loved 
for his fidelity and sympathy of a spirit which expanded and responded 
only under the influence of mutual confidence and affection. 

President Schurman, of Cornell University, thus speaks of 
Professor Tuttle's intellectual characteristics : 

He was a man of great independence of spirit, of invincible courage, and 
of a high sense of honor ; he had a keen and preeminently critical intellect 
and a ready gift of lucid and forceful utterance ; his scholarship was gen- 
erous and accurate, and he had the scholar's faith in the dignity of letters. 

The first president of this association, and ex- president of 
Cornell University, Andrew D. White, in a personal letter said : 

I have always prized my acquaintance with Mr. Tuttle. The first things 
from his pen I ever saw revealed to me abilities of no common order, and 
his later writings and lectures greatly impressed me. I recall with special 
pleasure the first chapters I read in his Prussian history, which so inter- 
ested me that, although it was late in the evening, I could not resist the 
impulse to go to him at once to give him my hearty congratulations. I 
recall, too, with pleasure our exertions together in the effort to promote 
reform in the civil service. In this, as in all things, he was a loyal son of 
his country. 



HISTORICAL WORK OF PROF. TUTTLE ADAMS. 37 

Another ex-president of the American Historical Associa- 
tion, Dr. James B. Angell, president of the University of 
Michigan, said of Mr. Tuttle: 

Though his achievements as professor and historian perhaps exceed in 
value even the brilliant promise of his college days, yet the mental char- 
acteristics of the professor and historian were easily traced in the work of 
the young student. * * * By correspondence with him concerning his 
plans and ambitions, I have been able to keep in close touch with him 
almost to the time of his death. His aspirations were high aud noble. 
He would not sacrifice his ideals of historical work for any rewards of 
temporary popularity. The strenuousness with which in his college work 
he sought for the exact truth clung to him to the end. The death of such 
a scholar in the very prime of his strength is indeed a serious loss for the 
nation and for the cause of letters. 

At the funeral of Professor Tuttle, held June 23 in Sage 
Chapel, at Cornell University, Prof. Charles M. Tyler said: 

Professor Tuttle was a brilliant scholar, a scrupulous historian, and what 
luster he had gained in the realm of letters you all know well. He pos- 
sessed an absolute truthfulness of soul. He was impatient of exaggeration 
of statement, for he thought exaggeration was proof of either lack of con- 
viction or weakness of judgment. His mind glanced with swift penetra- 
tion over materials of knowledge, and with great facility he reduced order 
to system, possessing an intuitive power to divine the philosophy of events. 
Forest and mountain scenery appealed to his fine apprehensions, and his 
afflicted consort assures me that his love of nature, of the woods, the streams, 
the flowers and birds, constituted almost a religion. It was through nature 
that his spirit rose to exaltation of belief. He would say, " The Almighty 
gives the seeds of my flowers — God gives us sunshine to-day," and would 
frequently repeat the words of Goethe, "The sun shines after its old 
manner, and all God's works are as splendid as on the first day.'' (Xew 
York Tribune, July 15, 1894.) 

Bishop Huntington, who knew Mr. Tuttle well, said of him 
in the Gospel Messenger, published at Syracuse, IS". T. : 

He seemed to be always afraid of overdoing or oversaying. With 
uncommon abilities and accomplishments, as a student and writer, in 
tastes and sympathies, he may be said to have been fastidious. Such men 
win more respect than popularity, and are most valued after they die. 



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